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REVIEWER MEETS REVIEWED

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM'S ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual

Thursday 16 February at 10.00 am (tea & coffee served from 9.30 am)

Anthropology Library and Research Centre, British Museum

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

The British Museum’s Anthropology Library and Research Centre, in conjunction with the Royal Anthropological Institute, is pleased to present ‘Reviewer meets Reviewed’, a discussion between Professor Patrick Baert, author of The Existentialist Moment: The rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual, and Professor Nigel Rapport, who reviewed the book for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Jean–Paul Sartre is often seen as the quintessential public intellectual, but this was not always the case. Until the mid–1940s he was not so well–known, even in France. Then suddenly, in a very short period of time, he became an intellectual celebrity. How can we explain this remarkable transformation? The Existentialist Moment retraces Sartre’s career and provides a new explanation of his rise to fame. Baert takes the reader back to the confusing and traumatic period of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath and shows how the unique political and intellectual landscape in France at this time helped to propel Sartre and existentialist philosophy to the fore. The book also explores why, from the early 1960s onwards, in France and elsewhere, the interest in Sartre and existentialism eventually waned. It ends with a new theory for the study of intellectuals and a challenge to the widespread belief that the public intellectual is a species now on the brink of extinction.